Changes to a Circuits Lab Sequence to Encourage Reflection and Integration of Experiences Across Related Courses to Explore New Solution Spaces to an Engineering Problem

Engineering design requires the evaluation of trade-offs within a solution space to fit the constraints and demands of a specific application. An engineering curriculum provides its students a tailored series of courses to meet this goal. Course instructors anticipate students to regularly make connections to materials of past courses, assimilate the new information of the current course, and then explore expanded solution spaces. Disappointment arises when students fail to make these connections or often fail to recall fundamental concepts necessary to make informed decisions. In this paper we describe changes made to a junior level class to help students recall content from earlier courses on a particular topic in Electrical Engineering. This reflection better enables them to compare and contrast new material and even make connections with future course and industry solutions. Our initial survey indicates that student perception of these changes has been positive. Furthermore, a majority of the students responding to the survey suggest including similar exercises in lab modules on other topics.